Although there are many food preservative systems available today, there continues to be a need for a composition having effective multiple component functionality in the area of fish treatment. It is known, for example, that many of the commercially available preservative compositions for meats simply do not work effectively with fish. For this reason, and the fact that fish are particularly difficult to preserve and enhance yield, particular compositions which are unique to fish preservation are often required.
The present invention is specifically directed to a unique composition for treating fish to both increase yield and enhance shelf life. More particularly, the present invention is directed to both a dry and a liquid composition which includes a selected mixture of various phosphates as a yield maintenance component, a preservative (shelf life) component of potassium sorbate and/or sorbic acid, and an acid component such as malic, tartaric or gluconic acids or the edible salts thereof, with an adjusted pH within a specified range.
It is important to recognize that the preservation of edible protein, as well as the yield enhancement thereof, involves many very close arts in which the transfer of technology from, for example, meat treatment to fish treatment is seldom possible. Each type of protein product, poultry, fresh meat, eggs, cheeses, sausages, shell fish, frozen shrimp, fish fillet, etc., all have peculiar biochemical composition with different types of bacteriological problems, taste problems, deterioration, etc. For this reason, the art is replete with may differing compositions which appear at first blush to be similar and yet most often have unique application in only one field for one type of protein product. Such compositions are commercially, technically or other wise unsuccessful or unacceptable when applied to other types of proteins. Thus, as the prior art below illustrates, there is very little that is predictable in this field. As will be more fully disclosed below, the present invention satisfies a long felt need, the solution to which has heretofore evaded the skilled artison.